i had to snap this picture over the weekend when, taking a breath from my work, i looked at the table objectively for a second and was flabberghasted at what a mess it was. the dining room table has become where i do my work. it's kinda where we all congregate... to eat and do whatever else, and then out come the laptops. you will count three in this photograph.

i guess it's good we're getting use out of it.

when i first met chris, this is what the dining room looked like:

i love this picture. why? because the stool was there so you wouldn't hit your head on the light. :D chris is a total boy, isn't he? very utilitarian. the stool thing totally cracked me up. :) the far room is still empty, which is actually really nice. SPACE. oh, except for at christmastime, we put the tree in there.

not only are we using the dining room table to eat off of, but kitten enjoys the table too.

see, the poor girl got her ass kicked this weekend. there are always little cat fights here and there outside (there are a few cats in the neighborhood, including a bizarro oreo), to the point i don't usually go out when i hear them anymore, except maybe to shoo the not-our-cats away. this weekend, however, the fight was so bad at 2 a.m. that it woke chris up, got him out of bed, worried. there was fur all over the front porch, and poop too. i guess she was really scared - she pooped her pants. kitten seems to have something about her that screams to other cats: KICK MY ASS! i don't know why, but everywhere i've lived, she's had problems.

so she came in. she smelled really bad; a melange of kitty pee and poo. poor thing. the best part was when she then proceeded to jump up on the kitchen counter to eat. but what can you do when your poor cat has just had her ass kicked? i set up the second litterbox we had just bought up in the big, empty room you see here in the picture and made oreo sleep in the other room so she would have some peace.

as evidence of how emotionally messed up she was... even though she's been using the litterbox like a good girl and NO ONE has peed on that couch in ages... she peed on the big-room couch that night. i had a feeling it would happen, strangely enough. thankfully, we upgraded from the garbage bags to a genuine plastic couch cover, which is then covered by really soft target blankets that we all love, so cleanup was a simple matter of laundry. yay!

anyway, she's slept inside EVERY NIGHT since then. she asks to be let out, but when i comply, she'll walk outside, look around, then turn right around and run back in. she's taken to sleeping up on the dining room table, despite the ample comfortable spaces around here to choose from. i'm thinking it's because it feels very safe, since it's up high.

there she is, sleeping on a placemat. :)thankfully, no one in this house is real squeamish about this sort of thing. chris's mom walked in the kitchen at one point when oreo was on the kitchen counter, eating her food. it's the only place we can put it where the dogs won't eat it! anyway, she walked in, looked at the cat on the counter, and turned around and walked back out. ha!

A small boy lived by the ocean. He loved the creatures of the sea, especially the starfish, and he spent much of his time exploring the seashore.

One day the boy learned there would be a minus tide that would leave the starfish stranded on the sand.

When the tide went out, he went down to the beach, began picking up the stranded starfish, and tossing them back into the ocean.

An elderly man who lived next door came down to the beach to see what the boy was doing. Seeing the man's quizzical expression, the boy paused as he approached. "I'm saving the starfish!" the boy proudly declared.

When the neighbor saw all of the stranded starfish he shook his head and said: "I'm sorry to disappoint you, young man, but if you look down the beach, there are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see. And if you look up the beach the other way, it's the same. One little boy like you isn't going to make much of a difference."

The boy thought about this for a moment. Then he reached his small hand down to the sand, picked up another starfish, tossed it out into the ocean, and said: "Well, I sure made a difference for that one!"